You walk into the grocery store to pick up a few things. As you enter through the automatic doors, you notice all of the people around you. You realize suddenly that each and every one of these people has their own life, their own existence, their own thoughts….

Thoughts….

The young mother checking out at register eight hopes her credit card isn’t turned down this time, praying that she won’t have to let her beautiful baby boy go to bed crying and hungry again. The disheveled teenage check-out girl scans the woman’s few items, glancing nervously at the group of girls walking down the main aisle. She recalls the frequent bullying and abuse inflicted by them and wonders anxiously if she is the reason for their laughter. The leader of this group of “populars” laughs to hide her fear—the fear that the others might notice her scars and guess the truth. The old man taking a jar of salsa from the shelf sees the girls and thinks of his own daughter, whom he hasn’t seen or heard from in years. He silently begs her for the millionth time to forgive him. His hand shakes with emotion and the jar crashes on the linoleum floor.

The crash brings you back to yourself with a start, and the true impact of these thoughts occurs to you.

Every person on this earth has their own story. Everyone is part of the massive community we call humankind, yet totally and completely independent, separate, and alone in their thoughts. And the vast majority of these thoughts have nothing whatsoever to do with you. As much as you are the center of your own world, you are either anonymous or inconsequential in everyone else’s. You matter to these strangers just as little as they matter to you.

In the mind, the only place of complete privacy, complete honesty, you matter just as much or as little to your friends as they really and truly matter to you. How much is that? Only you know. Only they know.

In ultimate secrecy…

Thought.